Android may be the world’s most popular operating system and have the highest smartphone market share, but it’s hardly been a guarantee for sustained success. In addition to many one-miss blunders like phones from Essential, Red, and the new Palm (so far), once high-flying HTC released its most recent flagship in 2018. And LG, which had been making phones since the pre-smartphone era, left it in 2021. Last year, another feature phone survivor focusing on rugged smartphones, Kyocera, left the market. And more recently, Bullitt Group, which made rugged smartphones under the Motorola and Caterpillar brands, packed it in.
